Read Online Darkness Under Heaven by F. J. Chase - Free Book Online Page B

weren’t.
    Doctor Rose already had her medical bag open and a pair of latex gloves on. She ripped the sterile packaging off a hemostat clamp and slid it into the wound along the path of the handlebar, trying to locate the ruptured vessel.
    The patient howled like a banshee. Feeling the hot breath of a hundred Chinese spectators on the back of his neck, Avakian fervently hoped that the kid wouldn’t die out here on the street.
    Doctor Rose located the bleeder and clamped it. She packed gauze into the wound and started a bag of Ringer’s intravenous solution. Shining a light into the young man’s pupils, she checked their reactivity before examining the nose and ears for signs of blood or cerebral fluid. Satisfied that there wasn’t a brain injury, she prepared a syringe of five milligrams of morphine and injected it into the IV line.
    The patient’s color had already improved, and he was much calmer.
    â€œIs there some way you can get the handlebar off that scooter?” the doctor asked Avakian.
    He took a quick look at it, then disappeared into the crowd.
    Doctor Rose couldn’t understand why an ambulance hadn’t arrived yet. She took her patient’s hand and said, “Don’t worry, you’re going to be all right.”
    Reacting more to her tone, the young man gave her an anxious smile. The doctor looked up at the ring of spectators. They regarded her impassively, neighbor commenting to neighbor on her every move. Doctor Rose busied herself in adjusting the IV flow.
    Peter Avakian suddenly reappeared, carrying a hacksaw. He leaned over the scooter and steadied the blade against the handlebar, about six inches from where it entered the leg.
    â€œWait a minute,” said Doctor Rose. “Let me push five more milligrams of morphine before you start.”
    After giving that shot a chance to work, she tapped the handlebar with her finger. The patient didn’t make a sound. “Try not to move it too much,” she told Avakian.
    He nodded and began sawing. About twenty strokes and he was through. Just then the sound of sirens filled the air. Of course, Avakian thought.
    Doctor Rose placed an inflatable splint on the leg and pumped it up. That section of handlebar was going to have to stay in his leg until surgery. “I should go with him to the hospital,” she said.
    â€œNot a good idea,” Avakian replied. “And not just because of the language barrier.”
    â€œThen how am I going to tell them about the morphine?” she demanded. “If they give him more they could kill him.”
    Avakian reflected that Kangmei would have been helpful just then, for translation purposes. Too bad he wasn’t around. “Does anyone speak English?” he asked the crowd.
    They discussed him in Chinese, but no one answered in the affirmative.
    Avakian sighed and thought it over. “What’s the abbreviation for morphine?” he asked the doctor.
    â€œMSO4,” she said. “Morphine sulfate.”
    â€œHow much did you give him?”
    â€œTen milligrams.”
    Avakian took the Sharpie from his pocket and wrote across the patient’s forehead: .01 MSO4. “That ought to cover it.”
    A policeman pushed his way through the crowd and began interrogating Avakian and Doctor Rose in excited, rapid-fire Chinese. Avakian just held out his hands in a questioning motion.
    The spectators immediately began telling the cop what had happened.
    Not good, Avakian thought. It looked like another call to Commissioner Zhou was going to be in order.
    Two ambulance attendants pushed through the ring with a stretcher. Doctor Rose, using pantomime, showed them the clamped artery. They remarked to each other over the lightweight inflatable splint.
    The cop said something, and the two attendants began arguing with him. Then a couple of firemen rolled in and joined the argument.
    Avakian just stood there, waiting for some resolution,when he received a